About Me

Proud homeschooling mom of 3 so far, Irish cradle Catholic, 3rd generation Red Sox fan, bookworm, and fitness video collector. I'm a New England Yankee at heart but have spent 10 of the past dozen years out here in Cali.

Our Family

DH: mycollege sweetheart and now husband of twelve years.Miss Scarlet: our oldest DD, age 9. She is in 5th grade and loves reading, creative writing, science, computer programming, drawing, and baking.Rusty, our DS, almost 7.He is in 1st grade and loves reading, science, history, drama, and anything mechanical.Princess Persimmon, ouryounger DD, who is 3 and loves getting into *everything!* She has autism and is currently attending a special day class.

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

British Govt. Agency: "3 Little Pigs" Offends Muslims

While the Malaysian government is busy censoring Christian kids' books, the British government has excluded a digital version of "The 3 Little Pigs" from its educational technology awards for "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs [raising] cultural issues." The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-ROM highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community".

The book's creative director, Anne Curtis, dismisses the government's criticism that the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism. In a statement, she said her company is committed to an ethical approach to business and its products promote a message of mutual respect. Banning such traditional stories, she asserts, will "close minds rather than open them".

I have numerous Jewish friends who, like Muslims, do not eat pork products. I have never once heard any of them complain about "The Three Little Pigs" being offensive to them. I have Hindu friends as well, and haven't heard them complaining about children's stories featuring cows. I'm virtually certain that my Jewish and Hindu friends would find the suggestion that they would take offense at animal stories to be as ludicrous as I do. They know what is a legitimate cultural insensitivity and what is political correctness taken to a ridiculous extreme.